


Still Waters

by junxouji



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drabble, F/M, Genderbending, Light Angst, Mermaid Jongin, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6259036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junxouji/pseuds/junxouji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongin, youngest son of Scylla — the sea monster, knew someone like him would not be accepted into the girl’s world. Not when he represented so many of their men destroyed at sea by his malicious mother. But Jongin couldn’t help but think if he could exist by this girl’s side one day it wouldn’t be so bad to be a monster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Waters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaiohtic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiohtic/gifts).



> **TITLE:** Still Waters  
>  **GENRE:** Fantasy/Romance  
>  **PAIRING:** Kim Jongin/Oh Sehun  
>  **WARNINGS:** fem!sehun – if you do not like genderbend characters I suggest you do not read this.  
>  **NOTES:** this was written for kaiohtic. everything is  _always_  written for her. ONESHOT/DRABBLE!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Feel free to contact or find me on   
>  [ask.fm](http://ask.fm/junxouji)  
>  ,   
>  [twitter](http://twitter.com/jongin_senpai)  
>  ,   
>  [livejournal](http://zhonqrens.livejournal.com/)  
>  , and   
>  [A03](http://archiveofourown.org/users/junxouji/)  
>  .

“The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can't.”

 

―  [ Christopher Paolini ](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8349.Christopher_Paolini) , [ Eragon ](http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3178011)

 

 

* * *

 

  
 

He has known about her presence for a long time. Ever since he was nothing but a young lad he would watch from the comfort of the large rocks scattered along the shore as the young girl was taken by her nursemaid to play with the seashells and build sandcastles that never withstood the waves of the ocean.

 

She was a quiet girl, he noted from his comfortable places hidden by the bright sun and high ocean waves as he fluttered closely to the edge always wanting to reach out and take her small hand.

 

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t expose himself to her. It was dangerous enough to come this closely to the shore. It was worth it though when the rare times the child burst into delightful laughter.

 

Jongin, youngest son of Scylla the sea monster, knew someone like him would not be accepted into the girl’s world. Not when he represented so many of their men destroyed at sea by his malicious mother. But Jongin couldn’t help but think if he could exist by this girl’s side one day it wouldn’t be so bad to be a monster.

 

 

—

 

Her name is Sehee - he finds out the name of his golden-haired goddess when her maid yells after her many years from the first time he’s seen her. He thinks she must be verging on sixteen human years now as he remains unmoved by time.

 

Today she is crying and Jongin can hear the frantic voice of the maid trying to reassure the adolescent girl. He doesn’t know why she’s crying but it hurts to hear the quiet sobs of the usually cheerful girl. Jongin wants to do something but cannot reveal himself.

 

So he does the next best thing. Jongin ventures towards the ocean floor and finds some of the pretty seashells he knows the girl cannot get herself.  It’s hard but he uses her crying as a distraction to place the pile neatly in her eyesight and slides back into the water. He thinks the light must reflect off of them because when she turns abruptly and sees the seashells she looks bewildered. Her crying stops and she looks around for whoever must have left them there but by now Jongin is safely hidden under the shore.

 

A soft smile dances on her lips and she picks them up counting them one by one.  Jongin watches until she has to go because it’s getting late. By now, he knows she lives on the top of the cliff overseeing the ocean in the manor there. Her father is someone important but Jongin never guessed just how important.

 

Watching her grow through the years is hard. Jongin figures she would be someone he would like. She is soft and shy at times peeking at the sea between golden locks of hair and energetic and bright other times when she runs barefoot down the shore despite her governess disapproving glare.  Her laugh is a series of musical notes that makes Jongin long for human legs so he could go laugh with her.

 

He makes a habit of leaving her hard to find shells and rocks from various parts of the ocean which are unobtainable to the girl. She always looks at the sea as if searching for the person leaving behind the unwarranted gifts. Jongin, figures, this must be love. Knowing he wants the best for her but also accepting the fact he may not be that.

 

 

Sehee grows into a beautiful woman. She comes less often to the beach and Jongin wonders if her life outside the shores he knows her in is very frantic. She wears a soft blue dress today that hugs her womanly curves but does little to protect her skin riddled with goosebumps from the ocean’s spray. Jongin knows if he were to rest his face in her soft curls that they would no doubt smell like the ocean.  

 

He doesn’t know why he is still hoping- or what exactly he might be hoping for? He wonders what he looks like in her eyes. If he would be beautiful or as unique as the shells she liked so much or would she see him as the rest of her kind does? It’s silly of him, right? To wait for the impossible to happen when he is much too cowardly to reveal himself.

  
  
 

The infamous day that Jongin hates to think back to happens at the beginning of summer of Sehee’s twenty-first year. Sometimes fisherman disturbs Jongin’s place where he likes to watch the shore and he finds there are many more humans around when the weather isn’t so frigid. It’s how he ends up tangling in a net meant for fish.

 

He had ventured too close feeling himself caught in a sudden wave and pushed directly into the net. He thrashes frantically only trying to free himself from the web but it tugs and secures him tighter. Panic sets in quickly and Jongin has pushed up the shore the hot sand burning his back unable to move properly.

 

This was not how he wanted to be captured.

 

It’s hard to breathe the harsh humid air as he moves unable to loosen the ropes. It’s the first time he’s ever seen himself out of the water and it’s a bit disorientating. His long fin that juts out from his narrow waist is smooth and dark blue-- a mighty powerful thing that allows him to swim through some of the toughest currents. Now it lays still, hopelessly even, caught in the red netting. The upper half is tanned skin from overexposure from sunlight, nails sharp and predatory, his eyes adjust to the sunlight both silver with flecks of blue that resemble the ocean shore on a foggy day and dilated with fear flickering madly at the sound of even the seagulls crying nearby. The mess of tousled wet dark hair on the top of his head with shells dangling from the ends framing an angular handsome face painted with his people’s tribal marks.

 

Behind thick, full lips awaits a set of teeth that are both sharp and lethal. Jongin might be beautiful to look at but it’s only because he was made to lure in his victims.

 

Truthfully, his species diet consists of men or women lost at sea. But ever since Jongin has met and laid eyes on Sehee he has stuck to consuming the fish which are not as satisfying but it makes him feel a whole lot less guilty. He does not want to be a monster.

 

He hears her singing before he sees her. He tenses up and closes his eyes not knowing what might happen. Would she be terrified? He expects to hear a scream but rather the singing stops abruptly and he hears a soft gasp. The thudding of his heart is inconsistent and he wants nothing more than to slid back into the ocean to disappear forever.

 

Would she look at him with disgust? Perhaps he looked pitiful trapped in the net unable to help himself. She would know what he was by a single glance. If she was smart she would go get the fisherman to capture him so he may do no harm to her.

 

 

Jongin tentatively opens his eyes but to his surprise, she had not run. She is standing before him in her yellow sundress, shoulders exposed and freckled from exposure to the sun, eyes wide in awe-- as if he enthralled her rather than scared her. Jongin tries to break free again and she jumps back startled but does not scream or run.

 

“Are you alright?” She asks slowly, a frown crossing her features. She must wonder if he can understand. He can.

 

Doesn’t she know who he is? Nearly everyone on this side of the shore knew of Jongin’s infamous mother who tormented anyone who dared sail in her sea. They knew of his siblings who prey on sailors and those who venture too far off into the waters. Surely, she knew what he was. What he was supposed to consume.

 

“Are you the one who leaves me the pretty shells?” Sehee asks with a tilt of her head, stepping forward again when she muses it’s safe enough. “I always thought someone might be watching me-- since I was little, I felt like I wasn’t alone here. It was you wasn’t it?”

 

 

Jongin meets her questions with silence, avoiding her glance because she is much more beautiful this close-up. He could count the freckles dancing across her face forming constellations on the ivory skin. Though she is very lithe and thin she is much taller than he imagined. Her hair looks like spun gold and he wants to run his fingers through it. How much she has grown since she was a little girl with scraped knees and unruly curls.

 

“Maybe you’re not… but I cannot just leave you like this.. if you’re found..” She trails off as they both know what would happen to him if he was found by anyone other than her. “You look so frightened. I want to help you but I want you to promise me you will not harm me if I free you. You do understand, right?”

 

 

 

Jongin nods. He wants to tell her he is unable to tell lies but he does not trust his voice. He is not sure they can form the human words and sounds correctly. He much rather remains mute than scare her with the gravel of his eerie voice. She looks conscious but does not hesitate. Bending down getting the hems of her dress wet and dirty with sand. A normal person would run and not think of freeing him. But he has been watching her since she was a tiny child -- he knows her heart is pure and trusting. Albeit naive.

 

Her fingers thin and slender and it’s surprising she is even beautiful on this part of her body. They’re able to loosen the net some -- so he could, at least, claw the ropes so they break and fall from around him. She gathers the ropes and tosses them back into the water. Jongin takes this moment to propel himself back into the water splashing her unceremoniously.

 

“Wait- wait! You don’t have to go,” she calls after him but he is lost in the sea foam, disappearing under waves of waters heart thudding maddeningly as he fights away his tears that mix into the salt water around him knowing this will be the last time he will have the fantasy of her love.

 

But he does have to go because there is no magical ending that will promise him a future with her. She cannot survive in his world and he would be hated in her’s. He can, at least, be content with the future knowing that she would marry her human husband one day and it would be enough to know she’s happy. That was love, right?

  
 

Sometimes though when he ventures back he hears her voice drift over the airs:

 

_“The water is wide, I can't cross o'er_

_And neither I have wings to fly_

_Give me a boat that can carry two_

_And both shall row - my love and I”_

  
 

Eventually, she is just a lingering memory that subsides over the years that Jongin remains the same. When he is lucky he spies her over the rocky waters laughing with a child in tow. A little girl with bright eyes and golden curls who giggles madly at the antics of her mother. Jongin loves the little girl as if she was his own - somehow knowing that Sehee would live in the bright, cheerful child. It dulls the ache in his thunderous heart.

 

 

 

 


End file.
